On
forays outside of Kashgar he occasionally caught glimpses of the formation that
local people called Tushuk Tash, or Hole Rock. Intrigued, he set out to find
it. Three times he and his wife, Diana, along with other companions, tried to
approach it from the south side. Three times the labyrinthine fortress of
eroded rock south of the arch thwarted their efforts. Finally they found a
successful approach from the north. Shipton put his hand on the arch, but he
lacked the modern climbing equipment that would have allowed him to ascend it
safely.

If
he could visit Kashgar today, Shipton would probably wince at its new
Chinese-style business district, crowded with what he called "that great
scourge of modern civilization, the internal combustion engine." He'd feel more
at home, as we did, among the old rhythms beyond the city center. Kashgar grew
up in a vast green oasis fed by the melting snows of surrounding
mountains—a huge garden of barley, wheat, vegetables, and melons. The
city still resembles Shipton's "curious, medieval
land," where donkey carts haul goods and people along tree-lined lanes and
where country people pour into the city once a week to attend the Sunday
bazaar, said to be the largest of its kind in Asia. Graybeards in black robes
and fur-trimmed hats head for the stock market—where they argue the merits
of camels, horses, fat-tailed sheep, and cattle—while their wives stream
through rows of bright fabrics, household goods, carpets, and jewelry.

As
for the big arch, although it lies just 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Kashgar,
it remains obscure. Our liaison in the city, Abdullah Hallick, had never been
near it. Nor had his friends and neighbors. We had acquired a set of Russian
topographic maps, but they were practically useless. The maps showed the
mountains accurately, but in the core of the range, where it really mattered,
their contour lines went haywire. The cartographers had simply given up. I
called these areas Vales of Despair. The mapmaker's despair, that is—and
our joy. Blank spots on the map are dishearteningly rare in these days of the
global positioning system.

So
to find the arch, we followed our imagi-nary companion Shipton—an expert
in blank spots—to Mingyol, where we met the old man who remembered him.
Entering the village that day, we found it a peaceful, shady place echoing with
the sound of irrigation water, the soil damp beneath rows of poplars, cuckoos
singing in the trees. It was home to some 50 Uygur and Kyrgyz families.

In
Mingyol, Shipton had enlisted the help of a local villager to find the arch.
His name was Usman Akhun, a man of "splendid physique and the easy rhythmical
movements and self-assurance of an Alpine guide." Hoping that such an
impressive character would be remembered, we asked around and were soon led to
the home of Torogan Usman, the youngest son of Usman. He leaned on a shovel
with a shy smile and told us that his father had died some years ago at an old
age.